1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to computer-implemented objects, and in particular, to maintaining object relationships.
2. Description of Related Art
Databases are computerized information storage and retrieval systems. A Database Management System (DBMS) stores and retrieves data in databases. Databases are organized into tables which consist of rows and columns of data. The rows are formally called tuples. A database will typically have many tables and each table will typically have multiple tuples and multiple columns. The tables are typically stored on random access storage devices (RASD) such as magnetic or optical disk drives for semi-permanent storage. A DBMS can be an object-oriented database management system (OODBMS). An object-oriented database is organized into objects having members that can be pointers to other objects.
Some systems store catalog objects using an information catalog. In particular, for each object to be cataloged, there is a corresponding metadata object in the information catalog describing the object. A metadata object contains metadata, which is information about other data. For example, metadata could be information that describes the name of a table or the location of a document, but it is not the actual data in the table or document. The metadata for an object in the information catalog may change over time. Currently, it is difficult to identify the changes that occurred.
Thus, there is a need in the art for a technique for determining the transformation lineage of data.